Asparagus with Balsamic Butter

Would it surprise you that I ate this whole dish of asparagus for lunch recently? It was just so easy and tasty! This "recipe" is more of a vegetable suggestion: grilled with balsamic butter. There are only three ingredients. (You can already name them.)

Making asparagus this way transforms them for the people who like their veggies with a sauce. I know a few folks who think plain vegetables are boring and prefer them with something extra. Balsamic butter is a very simple way to dress up "boring" vegetables.

"Green Things" Pesto

While I am cooking, I set aside all the little green scraps. I keep them in the fridge until I have collected a large handful or two. Then I make "green things" pesto to use up the delicious green leftovers.

How to Cook Perfect Quail's Eggs

Quail's eggs are tiny, speckled beauties. They cook in a very short time, and make an elegant addition to a salad, soup, or appetizer tray. I bought a dozen at the Central wet market in Hong Kong and set about on an experiment to discover how to boil the perfect quail's egg.

 

I boiled the eggs above for different lengths of time to see how long it took to get a perfectly soft or hard boiled egg. The eggs above were cooked for 1 minute, 2 minutes, 2.5 minutes, 3 minutes, and 4 minutes.

Sunrise Breakfast

For my birthday this year I got the most amazing present - a sunrise breakfast with my husband as part of our holiday to Bali, Indoneisa. We were staying at a hotel with beautiful beach frontage, and he arranged for us to have a sunrise breakfast on the last day of our stay. The day before it happened, I found myself wondering, What would be served at an intimate table for two at sunrise?

Hollandaise Sauce

One of my readers sent me a question recently about cooking vegetables.

"I find I am always looking for different ways to cook veggies. My husband is hard to please. He doesn't really like salad, and wants stuff to be really flavourful. He likes 'sauce.' He seems to think that everything needs 'sauce' or 'seasoning.' If you have any suggestions, I'd really appreciate them."


Veggies are my favourite thing to cook, and I am always looking for ways to help others love them as much as I do. Starting with fresh ingredients is always the best first step. But I am more than happy to suggest sauce ideas, too. Hollandaise sauce is a good bet because it's simple to make but adds a slightly richer flavour to a light meal such as steamed fish and veggies.


Hollandaise is a classic French sauce, so I used a recipe from I Know How to Cook, the French cooking tome, recently published in English for the first time. Hollandaise is brilliant with vegetables, fish, eggs, and even grilled steaks. It's a bit fiddly to make the first time, but doesn't take too long, and is easy to get used to. There are only three main ingredients and the recipe below makes plenty for a larger family or two meals for a couple (just reheat it very gently for the second meal).

Hollandaise Sauce
adapted from I Know How to Cook

Hollandaise sauce is one part in the trinity of Eggs Benedict, along with an English muffin and a poached egg. Learning to perfect Hollandaise is simple, and gives you triumphal bragging rights.

3 egg yolks
salt and pepper
3/4 c (175 g) butter
2 t lemon juice, warmed

Put the egg yolks in a heatproof bowl with 1 T water and a pinch of salt over a very low (barely simmering) heat. Stir vigorously.
Remove from the heat, add the butter, cut into small pieces, and stir in. Return to heat and stir until the sauce thickens. As this is happening, keep the heat low and remove the pan from the heat any time it looks as though the eggs are about to become scrambled.
Pour in the lemon juice, stir with a bit of salt and pepper, and serve immediately.